Joe Arpaio is Model T; Paul Babeu's a Corvette

When Sheriff Joe Arpaio went fishing for an outside agency to investigate internal claims of misconduct against his chief deputy, David Hendershott, he picked Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu.

This was no accident. Arpaio selected the only other person in Arizona who knows not only how to be a sheriff but how to play one on TV.

Babeu, 41, is the lawman with the shaved head who became a media darling after he was featured in Sen. John McCain's campaign ad about building the "danged" fence.

Babeu won't speak directly about his investigation into Arpaio's office, but he'll talk about Sheriff Joe, whom Babeu professes to agree with (generally) and to admire.

And why shouldn't he?

For nearly two decades, media hacks like me have believed that Arpaio is an anomaly, a unique hybrid of peace officer and publicity hound who never existed before and never would again. We were wrong.

Sheriff Joe is not a fluke. He's a prototype. He is only the first off the assembly line. And if Arpaio is the Model T, Babeu is the Corvette.

I first spoke to Babeu in 2007, when he was head of the police union in Chandler. He had moved here from Massachusetts, where he'd tried and failed to get a political career going.

I contacted Babeu about Arpaio's arrest of Chandler police Sgt. Tom Lovejoy following the accidental death of his K9 partner, Bandit. The dog was forgotten in a hot car and died. Arpaio milked the tragedy for all of the media attention he could get, which was plenty.

Babeu was then the police union president. In those days he was against local officers enforcing immigration law. He told me of Arpaio, "It is disappointing to us to see more of a showman than a lawman from the sheriff."

But Babeu also saw how Arpaio had carved a trail into big-time politics through law enforcement. And after about five years in Chandler, Babeu ran for sheriff in Pinal County.

Meantime, McCain and Arpaio have butted heads for years. So when McCain went looking for a law-enforcement guy to stand with him, he selected Babeu. And a media star was born.

Has the attention changed him? I wondered.

"I continue to work and keep focused on what my job is first," Babeu told me.

The supervisors battling Arpaio are skeptical about Babeu's investigation into the sheriff.

"If the investigation comes out favorably to Sheriff Arpaio, the investigation will be dismissed as a political whitewash," Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox said. "If Mr. Babeu issues a scathing indictment of (Chief Deputy) Hendershott, it will be seen as an attempt to put the blame on Hendershott and build a wall around the sheriff, protecting him."

Wilcox is missing the big picture. Whatever conclusion is reached by his office, Babeu will get a ton of media exposure.

He currently spends a lot of time on TV condemning the Obama administration's border policy and pushing Senate Bill 1070. This makes him a lightening rod. Last week, a billboard appeared in Oracle with a photo of a Latino family on it. Next to the picture is the quote: "This is our most serious public-safety issue and a national-security threat to America." The quote's from Babeu.

"I'd like to sit down privately with those folks and hear their concerns," Babeu told me. (He's aware that saying this means the meeting is no longer private.) "And even if we break from the meeting and disagree, we will do so respectfully, and they will know exactly how I stand. . . . Would Sheriff Joe do that? I don't know. I'm not him."

He's right. Babeu is the newer improved model. It turns out that Arpaio didn't break the mold. He merely was the mold.